[kellynla]

"The urge to blame speculators is as big a waste of time as blaming oil companies. Americans want more oil and gas - not more hot air from politicians."

[kellynla]

ping

[gusopol3]

But now JPMorgan analysts estimate that oil will drop to $85 a barrel from 2009 to 2011. Even Goldman Sachs analyst Arjun Murti, who recently guessed oil might reach $200, later told Barron's that oil will likely drop to $75 or less in the long run.

Maybe we will be looking at BO finishing his second term ( notice he didn't say "last") in 2016.

[Fishtalk]

I am invited by my propane supplier, a commodity he provides that heats my house, to purchase a full tank in the early fall at whatever price at that time.

My challenge is to decide whether to wait until the foul weather is about to come upon and THEN purchase that full tank.

Which makes me, I admit with absolute shame, a speculator.

Last year I chose the early fall option and saved a quarter a gallon as the price rose come the time to use the stuff.

What will congress do to me? I am very concerned.

[mo]

I’ve just assumed when the merchant banks resolve their mortgage indigestion via the oil runup...all will quiet down in the oil markets.....

[NRG1973]

Its going to be very hard to rein in the futures traders. If you rememeber, before oil started trading on the NYMEX in 1983, OPEC set the price of crude oil. At that time it was very common for OPEC countries to “leapfrog” each other to set higher prices...and that was when the oil glut was beginning. If they “leapfrogged” in the early 1980’s when supply outstripped demand, can you imagine what would happen now with demand outstripping supply.

The other problem with regulators trying to control trading on the NYMEX is that if traders/speculators aren’t able to get what they want on the NYMEX they will simply trade for oil on other exchanges. There are many exchanges in the world and some are poorly regulated. Do we want to drive the oil traders to those exchanges?

The reality is that international trading on the markets is still the best way to price the benchmark crudes. If regulators try to play games with the system we might go from a state of expensive oil to oil shortages.

[gitmogrunt]

What if one of the speculators name is George Soros?

[spanalot]

I am not sure about this because China and many others subsidize cheap fuel - where do they get the money to do that?

[jpl]

Guess wrong on the direction, and you lose money.

Many of these speculators are not driving the price up in order to make money, they're doing it to try to screw over the Republicans and get Obama elected.

[curiosity]

Thanks for posting. I've been saying this for the last month. I'm shocked at how many Freepers are falling for the populist scapegoating of commodities investors. I'd expect this from the left, but not from a conservative site like this.

Hopefully some will listen to Reynolds' reasoning, which is quite sound, IMHO.

[jonrick46]

The Democrat's strategy of blaming the speculators for the gas crisis is working. More Americans won't read the complicated explanations about the role of speculators in the investment world. They have just enough economic sense to jockey a few credit card accounts around to keep their boat afloat.

Most Americans are going to blame the oil companies and the speculators for the high price of gas. This takes the real culprits, the environmentalists and their Marxists collaborators, the Democrats, off the hook.

We need an easy explanation for the oil crisis that any voter with a third grade equivalent education will understand.